I don't know if the powers that be have noticed, but I think Uri Berliner's editorial has already provoked more comments than any piece the TFP has ever run. At least in the last half-year or so.
Yet another movie with a primary image of some adulteration of the Statue of Liberty isn't important in the slightest. That trope should have ended with the innovative Planet of the Apes decades ago. We are not headed in any way toward a Civil War. People have too much to lose and the vast majority of us actually see good in others - even others we sometimes disagree with politically.
Uri's piece, though... he nails what's important. He may be too close to the fire to fully understand why, because he thinks NPR is fixable. But he gets it.
...a country which, depending on who you ask, is going to hell in a handbasket because of drag queen story hour or bans on drag queen story hour. ...
Yep. You nailed it. That's what all the strife is about. It has nothing to do with billions spent on foreign wars or millions of lives being ruined with toxic substances on American streets or a former American president being hounded for spurious reasons by a spurious legal system... the worries of these "rubes" are trivial things like drag queen story hour...
It won’t start as a civil war. It will start with nullification. And then a mistake will mandate hard choices. We came closer than people think in Texas a few months ago when Abbott took over a section of the border from ICE or Homeland Security and instituted the state’s immigration prevention strategy. The Feds had a choice. They initially threatened to physically take back control. In fact there were loud leftist voices supporting sending in the military. But they eventually backed down. At least for now until after the November election. If they win all gloves will come off.
In a different timeline, imagine a standoff between the US Army and Texas militia and police over building or dismantling protective border barriers, a shot goes off and some combatants die. Things escalate. Other states need to take sides. Boom!
The big question is- which side do the actual US military COMBAT troops choose? I emphasize combat because 90% of them are white country boys with loyalty to each other and not to some imaginary leader in DC.
Maybe that explains the DEI push that we’ve seen in the military the last few years. Replacement theory writ small. I think the powers that be will find them crackers harder to effectively replace than they think.
The civil war in this country started during the Obama administration, and continues through today.
Our federal government, and all of it's agencies (CIA/FBI/IRS) have become advocates of the Leftist agenda. Free Speech is under attack, and the Democrat party is no longer persuading voters to vote for them, but seizing power by taking over the judiciary system, as well as our electoral process.
The civil war won't be about actual warfare, but an insidious takeover of the government by rewriting the constitution. Not nearly as fun to watch for our generations of basement dwelling 'gamers', but a reality nonetheless.
I don't think I'll see this movie and I don't think the US is headed for a civil war. BUT. Is the progressive left willing to wield the apparatus of the State to suppress individual liberties? Unambiguously, yes. Is that the kind of thing that could lead to some kind of uprising? Yes. Hopefully a peaceful one that is litigated with ballots not bullets. But, we're already well past the point where our federal government is more tyrannical than was the king that the colonists rebelled against 250 years ago.
As drag queens are a male sexual fetish as defined by your NIH, why is there even a chance of using it as a rhetorical device?
I still have not found a single person to stand on their hind legs and defend the idea of exposing small children to men with an obvious, visual sexual fetish.
What it the point? What are you/they attempting to accomplish?
Obviously I think anyone in favor of drag queen story hour should be under medical or other forms of observation.
Because they should be.
Maybe ankle bracelets so we know if they are near day cares, or kindergartens?
I watched it and it is worth wasting a few hours for grins. I agree with Bari’s synopsis - the story is hollow. As a combat veteran (Afghanistan and Iraq) and professional historian I pretty much dismiss “civil war” talk because our modern American geography (to include our political geography) makes it basically impossible. It won’t be north vs south…it certainly won’t be east vs west (too much maneuver room in between). So, our only option is a break along political lines. Amazingly enough, however, humans actually have the capability to vote one way (say…”red”) when the state they live in is “blue.” Dig deeper and this goes down to county, city, and even town level. I can’t think of anywhere that is 100% focused on a single political side. That means no civil war, but a more kinetic type of what we already have…internecine war.
The issue with a violent internecine situation is that your enemy can be a non-combatant on Monday and rig your car to explode the next. The nice old lady who votes “blue” but supports Israel could easily be shot by either side. Having a bad day? Head over to that enclave of rich, white folk and pop a few rounds at the kids in the pool. No uniforms, no borders, just anger and violence. Taken as a whole it is far more frightening and damaging than a mere civil war.
I find it difficult to believe that the US would actually devolve into a real shooting war with a front and named combatants, but we are in a cold Civil War now and there are plenty of issues that could drive the many sides further apart. Texas has at least one issue, the border, that pits the state law against the lawless federal government. Other states will follow. California is going to ban the sale of gas powered cars, but what if a future federal government seeks to seal in the right to buy gas powered cars and be able to buy gas for them? Slowly but surely the states are building the legal regime the majority of their citizens want to live under and there will be conflicts over who has the power to set and maintain authority. A healthy dose of federalism will keep us out of a shooting war, and keep the conflicts in the legal domain. Regarding the movie, I have little doubt that the bad guys will look and sound just like me, and while I'd love to go see a great movie, I get pretty tired of the condescension of most of them.
This civil war propoganda isnt going to lead anywhere good.
And if there *is* a civil war soon, as a result of major economic collapse, I see it as being between the indoctrinated kids who want to implement gay race communism and the globalist postmodern neoliberals who run the show. Conservatives or even centrists won't really have a "side" -- it'll be the leftists who ran the economy into the ground but want to keep their power versus the leftists who want extreme wealth redistribution and think everything is the fault of straight white men, traditional family structures, the patriarchy, etc.
I'm kinda glad the movie didn't try to dig into politics. Hollywood's current track record doesn't portent such a movie as being good. They would have botched it and made the "far right' side the obviously cartoony bad guy and the good guys being themselves. Thus not actually portraying most of America or their actual gripes and issues.
Suzy's joking comment about the sides being for or against drag queen story hour is the kind of thing such a movie would have focused on. There are people on the 'progressive' side of things that truly think that is what things are about. They simplify it down to something they can understand and so they don't actually have to think in a nuanced way. Far easier to say "They hate trans people" than to think "Hey, why DO we feel the need to put men in drag in front of children whose parents don't want them there?".
“But Civil War is only about what it would look like—and sound like—if contemporary America had a civil war.”
I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. If such a thing were to actually occur, at the end of the day it probably wouldn’t matter much to the people in the thick of things on the ground what the politics and causes of the war were. There is, in any case, certainly room for a movie focusing more on their visceral experiences and simulating what such a war might look and sound like regardless of what the sides stood for.
This is not to say a movie that dives deeper into the politics could not be an interesting film, but it would almost certainly be very controversial and unlikely to get blockbuster funding or hold much mass appeal. I find it a little strange to criticize the film for not being something it doesn’t even try to be. That was what was so great about Roger Ebert, he met films where they were at and judged them based on whether they were successful at being the kind of movies they were aiming to be, not based on whether they were as good as some different hypothetical movie he would have preferred. Point is, if the movie is well-made for what it is, I’m not going to fault it for not being something it isn’t.
I've not seen the movie, but watched the trailers. I assumed the TX-CA alliance was a "if the devil was fighting Hitler, I would ally with the devil" (paraphrasing Churchill) sort of thing. Keeping it "2024 neutral" in terms of the plot is probably just smart business.
As others have said, the first steps towards any civil war would be "nullification" crises where states won't enforce or otherwise oppose federal efforts. Then groups of states align into blocks. There is, obviously, historical precedent to all this. One element that is different from 1860 is that pretty much every state now is a "border state" in the sense that parts of it align strongly with the right or left.
Geographically, based on county level election results from 2020, over 80% of US territory is majority "red" (the colors are wrong, obviously, since the leftists are the actual reds). The leftist majorities are compressing into smaller and smaller parts of US territory. Biden was credited with winning the fewest counties in modern US history.
So, unlike 1860-1861, there are not clear borders. If civil conflict actually broke out, rural NY and PA would be aligned with SC and TX and similar - Eastern Oregon would not be taking orders from Salem. Detroit and Austin would be besieged islands, and similar. Highly populated cities don't produce the food they eat. Their citizens are not generally skilled in the US of rifles.
It would all be really messy and I hope we don't see this. In the worst case scenario, nations have peacefully separated in the modern era (ex Czech Republic and Slovakia, even the USSR mostly).
Thanks - I knew it would suck, but you just saved me any further wondering about it. You're a hero, Suzy Weiss (and not only for coining "Tampongate").
I don't know if the powers that be have noticed, but I think Uri Berliner's editorial has already provoked more comments than any piece the TFP has ever run. At least in the last half-year or so.
Yet another movie with a primary image of some adulteration of the Statue of Liberty isn't important in the slightest. That trope should have ended with the innovative Planet of the Apes decades ago. We are not headed in any way toward a Civil War. People have too much to lose and the vast majority of us actually see good in others - even others we sometimes disagree with politically.
Uri's piece, though... he nails what's important. He may be too close to the fire to fully understand why, because he thinks NPR is fixable. But he gets it.
...a country which, depending on who you ask, is going to hell in a handbasket because of drag queen story hour or bans on drag queen story hour. ...
Yep. You nailed it. That's what all the strife is about. It has nothing to do with billions spent on foreign wars or millions of lives being ruined with toxic substances on American streets or a former American president being hounded for spurious reasons by a spurious legal system... the worries of these "rubes" are trivial things like drag queen story hour...
This is just NPR in print...
It won’t start as a civil war. It will start with nullification. And then a mistake will mandate hard choices. We came closer than people think in Texas a few months ago when Abbott took over a section of the border from ICE or Homeland Security and instituted the state’s immigration prevention strategy. The Feds had a choice. They initially threatened to physically take back control. In fact there were loud leftist voices supporting sending in the military. But they eventually backed down. At least for now until after the November election. If they win all gloves will come off.
In a different timeline, imagine a standoff between the US Army and Texas militia and police over building or dismantling protective border barriers, a shot goes off and some combatants die. Things escalate. Other states need to take sides. Boom!
The big question is- which side do the actual US military COMBAT troops choose? I emphasize combat because 90% of them are white country boys with loyalty to each other and not to some imaginary leader in DC.
Maybe that explains the DEI push that we’ve seen in the military the last few years. Replacement theory writ small. I think the powers that be will find them crackers harder to effectively replace than they think.
The civil war in this country started during the Obama administration, and continues through today.
Our federal government, and all of it's agencies (CIA/FBI/IRS) have become advocates of the Leftist agenda. Free Speech is under attack, and the Democrat party is no longer persuading voters to vote for them, but seizing power by taking over the judiciary system, as well as our electoral process.
The civil war won't be about actual warfare, but an insidious takeover of the government by rewriting the constitution. Not nearly as fun to watch for our generations of basement dwelling 'gamers', but a reality nonetheless.
I don't think I'll see this movie and I don't think the US is headed for a civil war. BUT. Is the progressive left willing to wield the apparatus of the State to suppress individual liberties? Unambiguously, yes. Is that the kind of thing that could lead to some kind of uprising? Yes. Hopefully a peaceful one that is litigated with ballots not bullets. But, we're already well past the point where our federal government is more tyrannical than was the king that the colonists rebelled against 250 years ago.
Suzie
Sigh
“Drag Queen story hour”.
As drag queens are a male sexual fetish as defined by your NIH, why is there even a chance of using it as a rhetorical device?
I still have not found a single person to stand on their hind legs and defend the idea of exposing small children to men with an obvious, visual sexual fetish.
What it the point? What are you/they attempting to accomplish?
Obviously I think anyone in favor of drag queen story hour should be under medical or other forms of observation.
Because they should be.
Maybe ankle bracelets so we know if they are near day cares, or kindergartens?
A California and Texas alliance shows it has no grounding in our reality.
I watched it and it is worth wasting a few hours for grins. I agree with Bari’s synopsis - the story is hollow. As a combat veteran (Afghanistan and Iraq) and professional historian I pretty much dismiss “civil war” talk because our modern American geography (to include our political geography) makes it basically impossible. It won’t be north vs south…it certainly won’t be east vs west (too much maneuver room in between). So, our only option is a break along political lines. Amazingly enough, however, humans actually have the capability to vote one way (say…”red”) when the state they live in is “blue.” Dig deeper and this goes down to county, city, and even town level. I can’t think of anywhere that is 100% focused on a single political side. That means no civil war, but a more kinetic type of what we already have…internecine war.
The issue with a violent internecine situation is that your enemy can be a non-combatant on Monday and rig your car to explode the next. The nice old lady who votes “blue” but supports Israel could easily be shot by either side. Having a bad day? Head over to that enclave of rich, white folk and pop a few rounds at the kids in the pool. No uniforms, no borders, just anger and violence. Taken as a whole it is far more frightening and damaging than a mere civil war.
I find it difficult to believe that the US would actually devolve into a real shooting war with a front and named combatants, but we are in a cold Civil War now and there are plenty of issues that could drive the many sides further apart. Texas has at least one issue, the border, that pits the state law against the lawless federal government. Other states will follow. California is going to ban the sale of gas powered cars, but what if a future federal government seeks to seal in the right to buy gas powered cars and be able to buy gas for them? Slowly but surely the states are building the legal regime the majority of their citizens want to live under and there will be conflicts over who has the power to set and maintain authority. A healthy dose of federalism will keep us out of a shooting war, and keep the conflicts in the legal domain. Regarding the movie, I have little doubt that the bad guys will look and sound just like me, and while I'd love to go see a great movie, I get pretty tired of the condescension of most of them.
This civil war propoganda isnt going to lead anywhere good.
And if there *is* a civil war soon, as a result of major economic collapse, I see it as being between the indoctrinated kids who want to implement gay race communism and the globalist postmodern neoliberals who run the show. Conservatives or even centrists won't really have a "side" -- it'll be the leftists who ran the economy into the ground but want to keep their power versus the leftists who want extreme wealth redistribution and think everything is the fault of straight white men, traditional family structures, the patriarchy, etc.
I'm kinda glad the movie didn't try to dig into politics. Hollywood's current track record doesn't portent such a movie as being good. They would have botched it and made the "far right' side the obviously cartoony bad guy and the good guys being themselves. Thus not actually portraying most of America or their actual gripes and issues.
Suzy's joking comment about the sides being for or against drag queen story hour is the kind of thing such a movie would have focused on. There are people on the 'progressive' side of things that truly think that is what things are about. They simplify it down to something they can understand and so they don't actually have to think in a nuanced way. Far easier to say "They hate trans people" than to think "Hey, why DO we feel the need to put men in drag in front of children whose parents don't want them there?".
“But Civil War is only about what it would look like—and sound like—if contemporary America had a civil war.”
I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. If such a thing were to actually occur, at the end of the day it probably wouldn’t matter much to the people in the thick of things on the ground what the politics and causes of the war were. There is, in any case, certainly room for a movie focusing more on their visceral experiences and simulating what such a war might look and sound like regardless of what the sides stood for.
This is not to say a movie that dives deeper into the politics could not be an interesting film, but it would almost certainly be very controversial and unlikely to get blockbuster funding or hold much mass appeal. I find it a little strange to criticize the film for not being something it doesn’t even try to be. That was what was so great about Roger Ebert, he met films where they were at and judged them based on whether they were successful at being the kind of movies they were aiming to be, not based on whether they were as good as some different hypothetical movie he would have preferred. Point is, if the movie is well-made for what it is, I’m not going to fault it for not being something it isn’t.
Obviously, the white men who speak with Southern accents are the bad guys. Standard identifier in American movies for generations.
I've not seen the movie, but watched the trailers. I assumed the TX-CA alliance was a "if the devil was fighting Hitler, I would ally with the devil" (paraphrasing Churchill) sort of thing. Keeping it "2024 neutral" in terms of the plot is probably just smart business.
As others have said, the first steps towards any civil war would be "nullification" crises where states won't enforce or otherwise oppose federal efforts. Then groups of states align into blocks. There is, obviously, historical precedent to all this. One element that is different from 1860 is that pretty much every state now is a "border state" in the sense that parts of it align strongly with the right or left.
Geographically, based on county level election results from 2020, over 80% of US territory is majority "red" (the colors are wrong, obviously, since the leftists are the actual reds). The leftist majorities are compressing into smaller and smaller parts of US territory. Biden was credited with winning the fewest counties in modern US history.
So, unlike 1860-1861, there are not clear borders. If civil conflict actually broke out, rural NY and PA would be aligned with SC and TX and similar - Eastern Oregon would not be taking orders from Salem. Detroit and Austin would be besieged islands, and similar. Highly populated cities don't produce the food they eat. Their citizens are not generally skilled in the US of rifles.
It would all be really messy and I hope we don't see this. In the worst case scenario, nations have peacefully separated in the modern era (ex Czech Republic and Slovakia, even the USSR mostly).
Thanks - I knew it would suck, but you just saved me any further wondering about it. You're a hero, Suzy Weiss (and not only for coining "Tampongate").
Maybe TFP should get a film critic on staff. This is a flimsy and incurious review.